The référé législatif and the cahiers de doléances of PDF

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The référé législatif and the cahiers de doléances of 1789 di Paolo Alvazzi del Frate In this presentation I would like to trace the origins of the so-called référé législatif in the texts of the French

The référé législatif and the cahiers de doléances of 1789 di Paolo Alvazzi del Frate In this presentation I would like to trace the origins of the so-called référé législatif in the texts of the French Cahiers de doléances, presented to the Estates-General of In the first part, I will describe the référé législatif system, its historical sources and its links to the juridical doctrine of the 18 th century. In the second part, I will stress the contribution of the cahiers de doléances of 1789 to the creation of the so-called référé législatif process by the National Assembly in In my conclusion, I will try to demonstrate that this process derives both from Enlightenment Thought and the Old Regime legal tradition. For this reason the référé législatif received widespread approval in the revolutionary National Assembly. 1. The référé législatif was created by the National Assembly with the statutes of August 16, 1790 (art. 12, tit. II) and of November 27, 1790 (art. 21). It was based on two different legal concepts: the facultative and the compulsory référé: 1) the facultative concept was claimed by a judge for a doubt in interpretation or for a legislative hole encountered during a trial; 2) the compulsory concept was provoked by a conflict in interpretation between the French Supreme Court the Tribunal de Cassation and a Court to which an annulled case was assigned. The two référés were different, but they derived from the same principles. So it is possible to describe their common origins. The référé législatif was composed of two aspects: 1) the prohibition for the judge to interpret the laws when making a ruling (we can define this as prohibition of interpretation); 2) the obligation for him to refer to the legislator whenever he considers it necessary to interpret a law or to enact a new one. In the first case, the judge identifies an interpretative doubt, and in the second, a legislative hole. It is necessary to clarify that in the Old Regime the French juridical doctrine used to consider the interpretation of statutes as a broad judicial function. It was the so called in latin interpretatio in the Jus commune system that was not only a judicial function, but also a legislative function. The judge had the power to solve doubts by interpretation, to fill a legislative hole, and to extend or reduce the range of the application of statutes. So, the application was distin- 305 Paolo Alvazzi del Frate guished from the interpretation. For example, the French jurist Rodier wrote in the 17 th century that «the Judge must apply the statutes to the facts of the case, but only the Legislator namely the King can interpret them» 1. Today the doctrine considers the term interpretation to define only the process in which we can give statutes a meaning. Therefore, it is impossible to distinguish clear from obscure legal texts because all statutes even the simplest need and have multiple interpretations. There is no application without an interpretation. The theoretical structure of référé législatif is derived from the rigid conception of separation of powers. Particularly it stresses the separation between: 1) the phase in which the legal rule is created (legislation); 2) the phase in which it is applied (jurisdiction). From this point of view the interpretation was considered an activity of creating the law, so a normative activity. If interpretation is a form of creating rules, it therefore must be denied to the Courts and assigned exclusively to the legislators. Only the legislators have the power to interpret the law, as written in the famous maxim of Roman law Ejus est interpretari, cuius est condere leges. The only form of interpretation permitted is the authentic interpretation because it is enacted by the legislator with an interpretative law that has general effects. After any doubt in interpretation is resolved by the legislator s intervention, the judge can decide the controversy applying the interpretative law. The process was simple and coherent. Its main purpose was to guarantee the purity of the statute law and avoid the risk of misunderstanding the real meaning of the statutes provoked by the decisions of the Courts. This was a strong instrument for preventing the success of a legal system of judicial precedents. The référé législatif was not a totally new creation of the French Revolution. Its sources are ancient and can be found in Justinian law, Canon law, and French law: a) in Justinian Law the concepts of ban of Interpretatio and the process of relatio ad Principem, that is the obligation to refer to the Emperor in case of doubt of interpretation already existed. This obligation was based on several roman statutes. For example, in the constitution of 539 a.d. De legibus et constitutionibus principum et edictis («tam conditor quam interpres legum solus imperator iuste existimabitur 2») and in the Tanta constitution (Digestum) 3, «[Imperatori] soli concessum est leges et condere, et interpretari»; b) in Canon Law the authentic interpretation, after the Council of Trent, 1 M.-A. Rodier, Questions sur l Ordonnance de Louis XIV, du mois d avril 1667, relatives aux usages des Cours de Parlement, et principalement de celui de Toulouse, new edition, Toulouse, Dupleix, 1679, p C : «leges condere soli imperatori concessum est, et leges interpretari solum dignum imperio esse oportet (...) tam conditor quam interpres legum solus imperator iuste existimabitur». 3 «Si (...) ambiguum fuerit visum, hoc ad imperiale culmen per iudices referatur, et ex auctoritate Augusta manifestetur, cui soli concessum est leges et condere, et interpretari». 306 The référé législatif and the cahiers de doléances of 1789 became very important. The Bull Benedictus Deus enacted by Pius IV in 1563, established the obligation to refer to the Pope (who was the legislator) when there was a doubt of interpretation. In 1564 a Congregation for the execution and interpretation of the Council of Trent was created by Pius V with the Bull Alias nonnullas 4 ; c) in French Law we can point out the Ordonnance civile of Louis XIV of Its art. 7 of Title I, established that: «If during a trial ( ) a doubt or a problem emerges in the application of our statutes [the so called in French ordonnances, édits, déclarations and lettres-patentes] we forbid the judges to interpret them, instead we want them to stop the trials and wait to hear our will». That was once more the prohibition of interpretation and the obligation to refer to the legislator. The members of the Constituent Assembly recognized that the origins of the référé législatif could be found in Roman law. Robespierre even proposed in 1790 to assume «the maxim, that was known in public Roman law and in our traditional monarchist government: the Roman law established that interpretation of the statutes belong to whom enacted the statutes: eius est interpretari legem, qui condidit legem. If a different authority than the legislator were able to interpret the statutes, that authority could modify them and heighten its will above the legislator 5». Following the model of the Ordonnance civile, several reforms in Europe established the prohibition of interpretation and the obligation to refer to the legislator. We can mention, among others, the King Frederick II s Prussian project of civil code of ; the Leggi e Costituzioni of Charles Emmanuel III, King of Sardinia in 1770; and also the Dispaccio reale of Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, in The goal of these reforms was to deny the Courts decisions from taking a legislative role and assign the interpretation exclusively to the legislator. From their point of view, the legislators were trying to stop the usurpation of the legislation committed by the Courts. To conclude this first part of my presentation about the Old Regime, I would like to quote the definition of référé législatif written by Philippe- Antoine Merlin in his Répertoire universel de jurisprudence: [the référé législatif is] the process by which the judges, before deciding on an issue that they considered impossible to solve, due to the ambiguity of the law or to a legislative hole, referred to the authority holding the legislative power for the interpretation 7. 4 Later with the Bull Immensa aeterni Dei enacted by Sixtus V in 1587, the Congregation became the Congregatio pro executione et interpretatione Concilii Tridentini, to which «[si] dubietas aut difficultas emerserint, interpretandi facultatem, nobis tamen consultis, impartimur» mai 1790, in Archives parlementaires, I série, XV, p Art. 7 and 8, Part. I, Book I. 7 Ph.-A. Merlin, Référé au législateur, in Répertoire, 5 th ed., Paris 1827, XIV, p Paolo Alvazzi del Frate The contribution of the juridical doctrine of the Enlightenment to the creation of the référé législatif is so evident that we do not have to take time going into delay on this point. We will just point out the diffusion of the following two concepts in the 18 th Century: 1) the judicial function as a syllogism, 2) the negative connotation of the term interpretation of law as corruption of law. That was the case of Montesquieu who considered the judicial function «in some ways, null and void», because the judge does not have the right to interpret the law, but only to apply it literally. The judges «are no more than the mouth that pronounces the words of the law, mere passive beings, incapable of moderating either its force or rigor 8». The judges according to Montesquieu must follow the law to the letter, «otherwise the law might be interpreted to the prejudice of every citizen, in cases where their honour, property, or life are concerned 9». Also very important was Voltaire s doctrine. Take, for example, his affirmation in his Philosophical dictionary: «let all laws be clear, uniform and precise: to interpret laws is almost always to corrupt them 10». The Italian jurists of the Enlightenment in particular led a radical campaign against the interpretation of laws. The most explicit essay was the article On interpretation of laws published in 1766 in the periodical Il Caffé by Pietro Verri. It is a very interesting text that can be considered as a manifesto of the theory of legal interpretation of the Enlightenment 11. Verri affirmed that «the judge becomes the legislator if he is allowed to interpret the laws». The same theories are presented by Cesare Beccaria in his Of Crimes and Punishments 12 in 1764 and by Gaetano Filangieri, Neapolitan jurist and philosopher, in his Riflessioni politiche of To summarize: the juridical thought of the Enlightenment was characterized by a campaign to demonstrate the negativity of the exaggerated legislative role of the Courts with the goal of reserving all the legislative power for the legislator. In the name of separation of powers, the jurists considered statute law, the only source of law, in an almost holy light. Consequently, they had absolute confidence in the legislator and a deep mistrust for judges. The judicial interpretation was criticized by the Enlightenment doctrine because of the lack of legal certainty. Their proposed solution was to enforce the judges to limit their functions to a syllogistic application of the law. In this way only the authentic interpretation i.e. the interpretation of the legislator was considered admissible. 8 Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, Book 11, Ch Montesquieu, De l esprit des Lois, Liv. VI, ch. III. Book 6, Ch Voltaire, Civil Laws, in Philosophical Dictionary. 11 P. Verri, Sulla interpretazione delle leggi, in «Il Caffè», 2 (1766), n. XXVIII. 12 C. Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene. Particularly in chap. 4, entitled Of the Interpretation of Laws. 308 The référé législatif and the cahiers de doléances of In their juridical arguments, the cahiers de doléances, presented to the Estates-General of 1789, mixed the traditional culture of the Old Regime with certain requests of the Enlightenment doctrine 13. The most influenced by the Enlightenment culture were the cahiers of the Third Estate. The majority of these texts presented the petition of: 1) abolition of privileges, 2) constitutionalism, 3) separation of powers, 4) codification of law, 5) unity of jurisdiction. The Summary of the cahiers on judicial reformation established by the counsellor 14, an official document of 1789, gives a general view about the petitions of these texts. We find the requests for: 1) unifying the Kingdom s legislation: «Art. 15. Let the civil and criminal codes be reformed, simplified, and intelligible to everybody ( ) to be applied uniformly in all the Kingdom»; 2) uniformity of the jurisprudence of the Courts: «Art. 19. Let the jurisprudence be uniforme for all Courts and deny them from enacting decisions against the laws»; 3) banning judicial interpretation in order to avoid any normative activity put into practice by the judges: «Art. 18. [It is forbidden for judges] to repeal in part or interpret the laws»; 4) obliging Courts to explain the motives for their rulings, in order to control and verify judicial activity: «Art. 79 bis. Let all enacted judgements, civil or criminal, explain the motivations for the decision». Regarding the relations between legislation and jurisdiction, the cahiers were substantially in agreement for claiming the separation of legislative power from the judicial power. For that reason they requested a legislative monopoly for the legislator, the abolition of the Arrêts de règlement and the prohibition of interpretation. The general goal of the Third Estate was to contain the political role of the Courts. So the limitation of judges functions was considered an instrument to achieve this goal. The cahiers certainly aimed to guarantee the independence of the judicial power, but they mainly tried to protect the legislative power from the Courts interference. This attitude prevailed in the Third Estate, whereas the cahiers of the of Aristocracy and Clergy were more traditional and yet covered of a wide range of opinions. That can be explained by considering the political role of privileged Estates (the 1 st and 2 nd ) in the judicial system of the Old Regime. To conclude, the most frequent judiciary claims in the cahiers de doléances of 1789 were: 1) legislative unification, 2) prohibition of judicial interpretation, 3) obligation to explain the motives for all judgements. The quotations in these texts are innumerable so the following quotations must be considered only as samples. It is necessary to clarify that the meaning of the terms code and codification, employed in the these texts, does not correspond to the present meaning. The authors of the cahiers intended to refer to the enactment of a code of civil 13 See Archives parlementaires de 1787 à 1860, par J. Mavidal et E. Laurent, I e série, volumes I-VI. 14 Published in E. Seligman, La justice en France pendant la Révolution, I, pp Paolo Alvazzi del Frate or criminal procedure like the Codes of 1667 and 1670, the Ordonannces of Louis XIV and not to a code of substantial law. So, until the Revolution, the term code was synonymous with code of procedure. We will limit ourselves to quoting some of the most significant texts: the interpretation of law shall be reserved for the legislator, the motives for each ruling shall be explained in the judgements (tiers-état de Bailleul, Flandre maritime) 15. the judges shall be obliged to explain the motives of their ruling (...) the letter of the law shall always be followed, without allowing the judges the right of interpretation (cahier de la ville de Bergues-Saint-Winoc) 16 ; do not permit the Courts and judges to be able to depart from the text of the laws to allow the creation of new ones under the pretext of interpreting them (clergé de Beauvais) 17 ; [today] all powers are confused in the judicial power... under the pretext of the Arrêts de règlement, the Supreme Courts assigned themselves a portion of the legislative power (noblesse de Blois) 18 ; The judges shall be obliged to follow the letter of the law, with no pretext to move away from it (cahier général du Tiers de la sénéchaussée de Guyenne) 19 ; do not allow any Court or jurisdiction to extend or modify the laws (Tiers de la ville de Brest) 20 ; [the judges] shall be limited through precise laws and shall only be witnesses of the laws, apply the laws and not interpret them (noblesse de Bugey) 21 ; France needs to have a clear legal code, simple, and easy to apply... in order to limit the judge in his only function, i.e. to apply the laws and not to interpret them (cahier de la paroisse de Clemart-sous-Meudon, Paris hors les murs) 22 ; the law cannot be modified or interpreted but by another authentic law (cahier de la communauté de la Ciotat) 23. The cahier of the community of Mirabeau is particularly significant because it includes not only the ban of interpretation, but also the obligation to refer to the legislator: nothing shall be left to the judges free will; they must explain the motives of their judgements and be accountable to them; it shall be forbidden to annotate the law, or to interpret the laws in relation with the old ones, but in unprecedented cases, the judges must stop the trial and refer to the King and to General Estates in order to enact a new additional law Cahier du Tiers-état de la Flandre maritime, Bailleul, art. 6, 7, Législation, in Arch. parl., I s., II vol., p Cahier de la ville de Bergues-Saint-Winoc, Art. 7, 11, in Arch. parl., I s., II vol., p Cahier du clergé de Beauvais, ibid. II, p Cahier de la noblesse de Blois, ibid. p Cahier général du Tiers de la sénéchaussée de Guyenne, ibid., p Cahier du Tiers de la ville de Brest, ibid., p Cahier de la noblesse de Bugey, ibid., II vol., p Cahier de la paroisse de Clemart-sous-Meudon, Paris hors les murs, in Arch. parl., I s., IV vol., p Cahier de la communauté de la Ciotat, art. 45, ibid. 24 Ibid., p The référé législatif and the cahiers de doléances of 1789 It is also the case of the Nobility s cahier of the balliage of Evreux: no Courts shall be able to modify, interpret or change the law (...) in any context. All the interpretations, changes or regulations must be formally enacted by the legislator Conclusions Even if the cahiers de doléances of 1789 were not accurate from the legal and systematic point of view, most of them clearly adhered to a system based on a rigid separation of legislative powers from judicial powers. The interpretation of statute law was considered as a phase of the creation of legal rules so it was denied to the judge and assigned exclusively to the legislator. The référé législatif was not explicitly foreseen in the cahiers de doléances but it was the logical consequence of the French legal doctrines of 18 th Century. Bibliographical References P. Alvazzi del Frate, L interpretazione autentica nel XVIII secolo. Divieto di interpretatio e riferimento al legislatore nell illuminismo giuridico, Torino 2000; P. Alvazzi del Frate, Giurisprudenza e référé législatif in Francia nel periodo rivoluzionario e napoleonico, Torino 2005; F. Arcaria, Referre ad principem. Contributo allo studio delle epistulae imperiali in età classica, Milano 2000; Archives parlementaires de 1787 à Recueil complet des débats législatifs et politiques des Chambres françaises, ed. J. Mavidal, E. Laurent, I s., , II s., , Paris ; R. Aubin, L organisation judiciaire d après les Cahiers de 1789, Paris 1928; J. Barthélemy, De l interprétation des lois par le législateur, in «Revue du droit public et de la science politique en France et à l étranger», 15 (1908), pp ; G. Bassanelli Sommariva, L imperatore unico creatore ed interprete delle leggi e l autonomia del giudice nel diritto giustinianeo, Milano 1983; S. Belaid, Essai sur le pouvoir créateur et normatif du juge, Paris 1974; C. Bloch, J.

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